angles
by woodbox
Summary: there are more than one ways to bleed. for VersaceFrolic.


Some time in the first twenty minutes that Axel was talking to Roxas, he figured he might be in love with him. He had come in looking for a painting, something expressive and subdued, paradox. Axel tried not to laugh at his forced nature, the way he lifted his face in a ready-set-go before he actually smiled, and he mostly succeeded.

Riku had come in while Roxas was making his order, stood around for a while and antagonized him. But Roxas was all snappy comebacks while he wrote, a chewed pencil swirling across the pages of a college-ruled notebook, fingertips of his left hand lifting in careful patterns while holding the page down.

When they'd agreed on a price and a date, Axel grinned, folding the paper into his back pocket as Roxas backed out the open door, a smile like apology pulled across his face. An hour–it had only taken an hour, and both he and Riku were staring after him like they'd never seen anything so gorgeous ever before, in all their lives.

They hadn't.

--

Axel was supposed to paint a landscape. Roxas had written it out in detail, the vignette of a coastline: a tree house, the colors, the time of day, even vivid comparisons like the inside of an orange peel at the bottom a chlorinated pool, the way a sky turns gold before a tornado.

But he couldn't do it.

When Riku came in to the studio later, a stack of canvases under one arm, he found Axel crying quietly into one knee as he painted. Painted, painted, painted Roxas.

Riku put the canvases away in one of the shelves, then went over and sat against Axel, dislodged the paintbrush from his friend's fingertips, folded the hand in his own. His other hand wrapped around Axel's neck, warm and heavy.

It was because they shared that connection, all of them. From their hearts. Whether they wanted it or not.

--

Riku acted on it first. Called Roxas up to chat, which was totally okay because he was just an outgoing sort of guy. He appeared to have that confidence that said he knew you wanted to be his friend.

But Axel was jealous, stupidly and lividly jealous. Roxas came to see _him_, to get _his_ art. What the fuck was Riku talking to him for–well, other than the obvious.

Axel boiled, and called Roxas.

--

For a week, it was all okay. Axel talked to Roxas while he worked, phone clenched crampingly between his ear and his shoulder, a knee drawn up to his chest as he leaned over the great, huge canvas, a smile carved into his face.

Once, Roxas came over, sat on a barstool and swung his legs, worried his lip, gave quick smiles every time Axel glanced up at him, even if they didn't make eye contact.

It almost hurt him to be that happy, because he knew–he _knew_–that there was some sort of anguish happening with Riku and Roxas. Something had transpired that tasted foul and smelled like death, the dregs of passion swirling around in the atmosphere like that last bit of tea, cold and undrinkable, dirty with remnants of leaves.

It was always going to be there, and Axel resigned himself to that.

He resigned himself to the pain he felt when Riku came home two days later, took Axel's face in his hands, and leaned in. He didn't kiss Axel; he seemed to think better of it before they touched, his hands dropping to clutch Axel's arms instead, his forehead sliding into his chest.

Axel was angry. He didn't know who he was angry at, or why, or what had happened in two weeks to make everything hurt so bad. He'd thought he loved Riku, that he could give himself to Riku and be happy. He could've been happy with Riku. Riku could've been happy, could've forgotten Sora.

But.

Roxas? Was he jealous? Did he want Roxas or Riku? Was he mad at Roxas for ruining what he could've had with Riku? Or was he mad at Riku for getting where he didn't belong, wedging himself in the doorway to _Roxas_.

Oh, Axel thought. He was definitely in love with Riku. It was all so tightly bound together, like undoing a tangle in a gossamer thread, but Axel was sure he'd found the right one.

--

He supposed that this is what he got for doing this. These people, new people--Riku and–and Roxas. They were alive to him, they were interesting. They had stories in their souls, and he wanted that for himself, but not more than he wanted to show them their own beauty.

But he had abandoned the friends he'd had before, lifting himself from their lives until he felt unattached. They became the background noise, the underpainting to his life.

And now. Now he had no idea where Roxas was, and Riku wasn't picking up his cell phone, and he was staring and staring at his hands, as if they knew how this had happened. He slowly pressed his fingertips against his eyelids, rubbing slightly when he felt his nose burn, and then his eyes were hot, dripping.

So he slept.

He woke up to his cell phone, wailing out a song that he had apparently thought suitable at one point in the not-so-distant past, but that now made him feel cheap and fake, like American chocolate in a Swiss chalet. Using the swell of his forearm to wipe sleep from his face, he resolved to change the ringtone to a new song–something that suited Roxas, who was the only one he wanted to talk to these days, and slid the phone open.

"'Lo," he said, his voice thick from disuse. Riku was his only friend, had been for months, and now the bastard was spending all his time with Roxas. So he hadn't spoken for days.

Across the phone line, there was a gasp, then a drawn-out sniffle, and a dry, small sob that was definitely Riku. In a second, maybe less, Axel's ribs turned to ice, and proceeded to melt into his gut.

"Where are you?" he demanded. Riku made a painful whimpering, something that Axel felt–strangely–annoyed to hear. "What is _wrong_?" he asked, holding his phone tighter to his face, as if it would transfer to Riku, a shake of the shoulders, a firm grip on his jaw, a _**fucking look at me**_.

Riku proceeded to just cry, words garbled like his voice had run out of batteries, and Axel didn't dawdle. He pulled on his jeans with one hand, continuing his firm interrogation, still mild and caring but _good God just talk to me, please_.

"I can't help you if you don't tell me _where you are, Riku_," Axel begged, wobbling his feet into his sneakers. It was the middle of the night, moonlight was pouring in the small windows in the kitchen of their humble apartment, and it was unseasonably cold as Axel practically fell down the stairs to get to his car, parked in the orange-lit street outside.

"I-I really," Riku was saying weakly, "I really fucked up."

And it was then, as Riku hiccuped into whatever was muffling his phone receiver, that Axel knew he'd pulled the wrong string, opened the wrong door, taken the wrong fork. And he didn't care how he did it, but he had to get on the other path, and do it _quick_, before something got.

Before something happened to Roxas.

"Riku," he said, much less gently now, "Where is he."

--

His night had begun at two AM, and he wasn't sure exactly how many bridges he'd burned since the moon rose, but when he finally hung up with Riku, who had stopped crying and started screaming, it was close to six AM, close to the time when he should be sleeping, dreaming of happy pastel worlds and what he would paint tomorrow.

But it was already tomorrow, apparently. He pulled into the gravel lot, his movements weary from soul-ache but no less urgent than they had been. It had taken every once of hostility he'd possessed to get Riku to talk to him, to make him say where he'd last seen their friend, the glowing golden boy who might actually be made of gold. He'd done it, though, made Riku cry and made him yell, felt the pain that he'd been feeling and identified it as Roxas is missing, because he could see the figure of the boy silhouetted against the rising sun, the grey-pink-lavender clouds and he felt elation.

The night was over, it was over and the sun was rising and Roxas was there with it. He stared, awestruck for a split second before he took off running.

He reached Roxas as a panting mess, barely able to stand, much less run. His entire being had turned to mud, sliding down and off and melting, and he wanted to cry hard and smile and feel. He was feeling everything, all at once, as he pulled Roxas to his chest, and he could tell Roxas had been feeling it to, from the way his arms secured them together.

Minutes, by the quarter and the half and the increasing parts of hours, they passed them and weighed them down, tangled in both boy's hair until Roxas slumped against Axel, unconscious with exhaustion. Axel, pulling stamina from his soul at this point, hoisted Roxas against him and carried him to the car, wearily starting the engine.

For a minute, he thought he might just cut the ignition and sleep here, in the gravel lot next to the field. But he looked over at Roxas, arranged clumsily in the passenger's seat, his head lolling and his lips pressed forward, slight traces of drool around the corners of his mouth.

Roxas was alive, and he was okay, Axel thought. He needed somewhere comfortable, where he could wake up and smile, and not remember the night. He drove home with his eyes open on that thought, and used it to pull Roxas into the elevator and out, into the apartment and into his bed, to settle the smaller body against his own, tucked under his arm and pressed to his heart.

He fell asleep again, and when he woke, it was to a small kiss on his hand, the warmth of nervous touching burning his senses in a way that belied immense amounts of forethought.

--

Roxas was sitting on the barstool again, his legs swinging dangerously near Axel's head, chewing his bottom lip into a smile as he leaned over the working artist.

Axel had abandoned his palette and paintbrushes, opting instead for a paper plate, into which he had scooped the remaining paint. It was a portrait of Roxas, highly ambiguous with eyes that had no life at all. Out of his mouth there came blood, which the painted Roxas caught in his hands, and reflected white and pink.

Neither artist or subject particularly liked to look at it, as it was unsettling and tender, the unhealed wound of what would surely leave a scar.

But Axel was coating his hands now, the paint going from greenblueyellowredblackwhite to a sort of sickly grey, flexing his fingers to make sure they were covered. He looked up at Roxas, who lifted his eyebrows nonchalantly, though his chest felt bound and constricted; this was something to balance on, but Axel appeared to be sure that they could fall in the right direction. His hands hovered in the richly dark background before pressing deliberately into the canvas.

"I would touch you there," he said, flicking his glance up at Roxas, his mouth now hanging slightly open, nervous habit forgotten. Axel brushed his fingertips along the painted hair, down the painted cheek, placed his hand in on the painted shoulder.

"There, there, there," he continued, immersed in the painting. So immersed that he didn't notice Roxas, who has melted off of his barstool and reached out for Axel's shoulder. But he noticed with a surge in his gut when Roxas pulled him to face him, took his face in his hands and stroked his cheeks with his thumbs. And he'd noticed when Roxas kissed him, crying and smiling and laughing because Axel was getting paint in his hair and on his face.

When they finished, Roxas rolled over to look at the painting, now dry and harsh and jarring.

Axel was absently rubbing dry paint off of his fingers.

"Sometimes," he started, "I don't know how to help you. You seem so sad and I can't know why, but."

Axel sighed.

"But you have to remember–we all feel it sometimes. You just have to remember that there are more than one ways to bleed."


End file.
